3 years of loss

Yesterday was 3 years since we lost Kara. Today was 3 years since her birth. The pain is still fresh ~ I have days where I can sob as if it were yesterday. I grieve her as much today as I did 3 years ago when I learned of her death inside of me.

I grieve her loss to us, of course. I grieve losing every moment with her - every smile, giggle, cry, snuggle, and kiss. I grieve never having seen her open her eyes, never having her lay eyes upon us. But most of all, I grieve HER loss. The loss of HER life. SHE never got any of those things. She never had a smile, a giggle, a cry, a hug, a cuddle. She will never have kindergarten, high school, the prom or a wedding. She will never have a family of her own or any of those things that people take for granted every single day. This is what I grieve most of all. She was robbed of her life and the thought can make me rage inside.

I love you, baby girl. I miss you with every fiber of my being and I always will. I hope you know how much your mommy & daddy love and miss you, and how much we look forward to the day when we will be reunited again with you. You are my precious baby girl.

10 months and sleep issues

I am committed to updating my blog regularly from now on. I really need your advice and support and I usually just can't find time to write.


My twins are 10 months now. Q-man is FINALLY sleeping through the night and only occasionally requires a feeding between 3-4am. He wakes up around 5:30am every morning like clockwork. He naps beautifully - put him in crib and close the door. Crying for 1 min or less (sometimes not at all) and he goes to sleep for 90min - 2.4 hrs twice daily. Nice, right? (We did the Ferber method of CIO with him months ago and it worked perfectly.)

Miss Muffit has always needed to be rocked before naps and at bedtime. Used to take a few minutes, but gradually has increased to 20-45min of rocking befofre bedtime at night. (naps are quicker - 10 min tops). She has always slept through the night and occasionally needed a night feeding - always slept in crib and was the easiest baby. Both used to go down at 7pm and woke at 5:30am. We never needed to do CIO with her because she went down so easily and slept 10 hrs straight.


One week ago, it all started going downhill. Miss Muffit decided she would not be put down into the crib. She would be asleep in my (or DH's) arms in rocking chair, and would instantly sit up and raise her arms when put in crib. (WTF???) I had to travel Mon - Thurs last week, and this all started last Saturday. DH was home alone with them and Muffin's sleep issues began. He could not put her down! After an hour of this, he brought her back downstairs and she fell asleep in his arms watching baseball. Several more attempts to put her down in crib ended badly, and he brought her to bed. She would cry for 5 minutes and vomit. This happened 3 nights in a row. He cleaned her up and brought her to his bed.


While I was away, I instructed the nanny to begin CIO with her during naps. we did progressive waiting with a 30 min max, so checking in after 1min, 3 min, 5 min, 5 min, 10 min, if still crying, she is brought back downstairs to try again a little later. After ONE MINUTE, she vomited all over herself and had to be bathed, changed and rocked again.


One week later and here's how it goes. She stays up until 8pm now, falls asleep in rocker and is put into crib. Wakes up at 10pm and is brought into our bed. She sleeps until 6:30-7am now.


Part of my thinks its okay. She has 4 teeth coming in and she is experiencing terrible separation anxiety. I can't walk away from her with the nanny without her screaming bloody murder.

I know "this too shall pass" but am I creating a monster? I hope I'm just indulging her in her time of need with the teething and sep. anxiety. I hope I'm not creating really bad sleep habits that will haunt me until she's 5. Any advice?

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of my Babylost mama friends, and to those friends with live children at home. It's been a wonderful day here and unbelievably relaxed and pleasant.

I know I owe this blog an update and I am committed to updating more regularly, but it seems the time just gets away from me.

So on Thrusday, I received a Mother's Day card from my dad & stepmom. I was so touched, but then inside it said 'On Your First Mother's Day'. Well, I broke down and cried. This is my THIRD Mother's Day. It may not seem much to you if you haven't lost a child, but imagine...you lose a child and have no living children at home...you are still a mother, right? So now I have two living children at home and all of sudden it's my first Mother's Day. Yup. Made me a mess. I KNOW they haven't forgotten Kara...but have they forgotten that I'm still her mother? Well, the next day, they sent me flowers, WITH THE SAME MESSAGE! Happy First Mother's Day! Another tearful moment. The flowers were so thoughtful, but the message just bit me in the ass.

Let's face it, it wasn't a happy day when my only child was no with us, but I was still a mother. Burns my ass.

Twins are doing great! I am loving being a mom to living children. I cannot believe how much more I love them every single day. Q has taken his first steps without help, and M is standing and pulling herself up on everything. Eating is still a challenge for her - she prefers her bottle over any solids, but both a happy and healthy and great kids.

The weather has been lovely and we are walking as much as we can. Kids love being outside in the gorgeous weather; bare feet in the wind and hair blowing in the breeze. Love it.

This Mother's Day has been the best ever. I am blessed with three gorgeous children. Two here with me and one looking out for us in Heaven.

I miss her every second of every day, but that is a post for another day. I've been struggling with her loss (have I ever stopped?) and can't accept the magnitude of her loss. I will post about this soon as it's something ruminating in my mind over and over.

M & Q are getting big - below is a picture of them on Easter in their finest. My lovely babies.

quick update

It's been a long time since my last post - things are very busy here! Q is crawling all over the place and he's just about unstoppable. He pulls himself almost all the way up now and has become a menace :-) M is crawling backwards and mostly content with whatever she is playing with. Both are sleeping 11 hours with Q waking up only once to eat. It's like heaven. I never thought we'd get to this point. They wake up at 5am to begin their day (now 6am with the time change) but we hope that moves a little later soon. Weekends are really hard on me when I'm taking 99% of the responsibility for 13 hours. I usually end up in tears at some point and I go to bed on the weekends when they do.

We've started swin lessens at the local YMCA - and it's so much fun! It really gives us something to do on Saturdays, and tuckers them out for their afternoon nap. My mom comes with me to help and it's been really fun.

Both are starting to tire of their Jumperoos....what is the next activity toy? We have toys scattered all over the living room for them, but I need something to contain them for a few minutes at a time. I guess one of those scooter things? Any ideas? The Jumperoos have been lifesavers for us and they have really enjoyed them for months. They both received walkers for Christmas, but they're both still a bit short to reach the floor in them.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Here are photos of my favorite people on their way to swim class:

Lack of Sleep

If I had to choose the best 'toy' we bought for them, it's definitely the Rainforest Jumperoos. They LOVE LOVE LOVE them. See smiling faces above... :-)

The twins are doing great - they're starting to finally enjoy their solids a little more and feeding has gotten a bit easier as a result. My son has learned to roll where he wants to go, so he's busy entertaining himself rolling from one side of the living room to the other to see different toys. My daughter is really working hard to crawl - getting up on knees and rocking a lot. Sleep still sucks - my daughter is a champ but my son is really not a good sleeper. I've started putting him down later (7pm as opposed to 5:30-6) and he STILL wakes up at 3:30 - 4am to start his day. WTF? When does this get better? It sucks starting your day at that time. Ugh. And that's after getting up once to eat at 11pm. I wish I could just bring him to bed with us and he'd go back to sleep but that's not happening either. He wants to be AWAKE. I'm hoping this changes in the next couple of months. I mean really, they won't do this when they're a year old, right? Right?

I have re-joined the gym and hope to get there 3x's per week until they're old enough for me to be comfortable leaving them in the babysitting room. Until they can crawl and get around really well, I'm just not comfortable putting them in the nursery with other kids while I work out. That leaves me working out either on the weekends when my husband can watch them, or during the week when the nanny is here and I am supposed to be working. I think I can manage 3 times right now. I've also started on a diet because twice in two days, someone made comments about me being pregnant. I only have 20 extra pounds on me, but they're all in my belly. Needless to say, I cried quite a bit in the past 3 days over this. I've gone back to eating egg whites and oatmeal every morning and only salads for lunch & dinner. No bread, pasta, rice or potatoes. No McDonald's. No yummy delicious lunches with clients in the city...I have to stick with salads with chicken or fish in order to start losing some of this belly. Ugh. I'm disgusted. And I wish I could do plastic surgery like EB, but DH is still looking for work and our finances are very stressed. AND - I want another baby. Yes, I want one more child, so I'll have to wait on that belly reduction surgery.

Today is 6 Months!

I can't believe we made it this far...in the very early days I would read my twin mommy blogs and just pray that I would make it to 6 months as quickly as possible. Before you judge me, IT'S HARD WORK RAISING TWINFANTS! Seriously people...this is frickin' hard. Worth it, but not an easy task.

They turned 6 months today and I feel grateful to have them and pretty pleased with myself for having survived. At the mall on Saturday, an overweight woman came up to me and asked me if it's hard raising twinfants...I replied "Holy shit. I had no idea how hard it was until I lived through it. The first four months was impossible." Then I glanced at her belly and asked..."Are you pregnant with twins?" (I wish I would have noticed the belly first...I really thought she was just overweight.) She replied "Yes, I just found out yesterday that it's twins and I have a 5 y/o and an 11 m/o." I, of course, amended my statements and told her it's definitely manageable if you get them on the same schedule, blah blah blah.

I have never been successful getting them on the same schedule. I've lived 6 months with twins who have been on different schedules. She sleeps through the night with one feeding, feeds every 2.5-3 hrs throughout the day and naps every 2 hours. He wakes up twice a night, feeds every 4 hrs throughout the day and naps every 2.5 hours. Never could get them on the same schedule. Besides, they sleep in separate rooms because he always wakes her up. Now her sleep is protected and we all sleep better at night.

We are successfully implementing the Ferber sleep training technique. Can I just say 'FERBER ROCKS.' For real - this is amazing. If you recall, for the first 5 months my husband stayed up all night because my son was basically up every 45 minutes needing to be held, rocked, bounced, burped, whatever. It was always something. Last week I took a few days off and decided to sleep train for naps. I figured that if they learned to put themselves to sleep on their own (NO BOUNCY CHAIRS!!!) they would be able to put themselves back to sleep easier at night and not need us to bounce, hold, rock them every 45-min sleep cycle. Since then our lives have drastically improved. My son gets up once or twice a night and if he doesn't need to be fed or changed (he is offered a bottle numerous times before putting him back down) he is put back in his crib to cry it out. IT WORKS. (NOTE: They have figured out my breaking point during naps and they know I'm a softie. I need to work on that.) But hey - we're making progress! We can actually go to bed at a decent hour and sleep until 5am, sometimes 6am!!!! I could probably get another hour out of them if I kept them up later, but they're in bed by 6 (sometimes a little earlier) because neither wants that last nap around 2 or 3pm each day. By 5pm I'm tired of the whining and baths begin.

Looking back on the first 6 months, I seriously never thought it would get better. The drudgery of running 'shifts' with the babies was really, really wearing on me. DH from 9p-5a, ME from 5a - 9p (in between the nanny) and on the weekends it was just awful. I would be so exhausted and overwhelmed...I still can't believe we made it here. Things are manageable and improving every day. I am so blessed to have these babies. As much hard work as it is, I love them with every fiber of my being and I'm so very grateful for them. When I lost Kara, I lost the will to live. M & Q saved my life.

Christmas was hard. Besides the fact that we had 5 days straight with no nanny (before sleep training) we were run ragged with lack of sleep and lack of help every day. On top of that, we didn't visit relatives because the twins don't sleep well at my in-laws 2 states away and they had 60 people over for Christmas Eve. (yes, 6-0) WAY too many people for me with newborn twins. So, after putting the babies to bed, DH and I cried our hearts out together on the couch listening to Johnny Mathis singing 'Blue Christmas' and thinking of Kara and everything she missed out on. It takes my breath away to think of everything she missed. Kisses, hugs, snuggles, sunshine, stroller rides, playgrounds, kindergarten, school, college, boyfriends, proms, sports, a family of her own, children and grandchildren. The list goes on and on. We thought of our lost daughter and cried a lot that night. So yes, even though we're happy to have our lives filled with children, we will always grieve the child we lost. Every lovely memory of M&Q will be bittersweet because Kara will never have that moment, that memory. It's so fucking unfair. She didn't even get a chance. DH & I have become jaded about death, even in the very young. When we hear about a teen dying young, or a young adult whose passed, it's always "At least they had that many years. Kara didn't even get a day." So Christmas was very bittersweet for us, trying to enjoy the moment with M&Q while remembering our angel and crying for all that she (and we) lost. I don't imagine it will ever get any easier.

I will post pictures in my next update. I wish everyone a Happy New Year.

5 Month photos & update

I have to share a Christmas photo of the twins at 5 months. DD was not very pleased at the whole flashbulb-in-her-face-thing, and both were quite surprised at the different poses they were put in, but this is the only one that turned out pretty good. I couldn't get the photographer I wanted because she was booked through New Years, so I went to the mall and learned my lesson the hard way. $160 later, I'll never do that again.

They are healthy and thriving; she weighs 19lbs and wears a size 3 diaper, while he weighs 17lbs and wears a size 2. Both are rolling over and trying to crawl by squirming around on the floor until they inch their way forward or sideways. Both are trying to talk. My son goes "bbbbrrrrbbb" over and over and my daughter babbles all kinds of sounds constantly. She sleeps like a champ....but my son doesn't sleep AT ALL at night. He is literally up every 45 minutes, wanting to be held, rocked, bounced, etc. It is horrible and today we are heading back to the GI specialist to see if there is something else going on besides GERD (which is controlled right now with Prev.acid). My husband is up all night and can't even get a solid hour of sleep. My daughter wakes up sometimes at 11pm and always at 4pm for a feed and goes back to sleep within 45 minutes, so it's not so bad on that front. But him....good Lord. I don't know what we're going to do. I hate the thought of CIO because it seems cruel, if in fact he is truly uncomfortable in his tummy. That's why the visit to the GI doctor today. We shall see.

My kids LOVE LOVE LOVE Ba.by Ein.stein videos. They're on most of the day while the kids are doing other things (play mat, jumperoo, rolling around, eating, etc.) If the videos are not running in the background, they get antsy and whiny and no one wants two cranky babies. Obviously when it's story time or time to sing along with our baby CD, it's off. It's so hard right now with the weather being so freakin' cold - I can't even get them out in the stroller because it's been 25-degrees and windy. On the weekends we'll go to the mall and stroll for 1-2 hours, but during the week the nanny is at the mercy of the weather and it's no fun at all. If Ba.by Ein.stein makes me a bad mom, then I guess I'm a bad mom. I seriously don't know what else to do with them besides their current activities of jumperoos, playmat, rolling over, feeding, reading books, singing songs, etc. They always get plenty of floor time and rolling around time but they get bored and sometimes need something else to distract them. If you have any good suggestions, I'm open.

They also are completely dependent on their bouncy seats to fall asleep. In order to get them down for nighttime or for naps, they are placed in their bouncies and read stories (sometimes we sing along to a nursery rhyme CD when they're not quite tired enough yet) and then I (or nanny) bounces them to sleep with our foot and transfers them to their cribs. It works for now...but when they outgrow their bouncies at 25lbs, I screwed. I've decided not to worry until then though, because they seriously change every few days. One day they like this, another day they start liking something else. I'll worry about it when they get to be 25lbs. It's impossible to rock a baby who doesn't want to be rocked in a rocking chair - they get worked up and get a second wind. My son would be rocked, but my daughter really likes to be bounced. go figure. My friends with singletons are horrified at the 'bouncing to sleep' practice but seriously? don't judge me until you have TWO babies to put down for naps and for bed. I can not imagine how EASY one baby would be compared to two with completely different likes/dislikes, temperments, sleeping patterns, one with serious reflux, etc. I hope we will have another baby after these two, because it will be a walk in the park compared to this. I can't tell you how many times I've pee'd or eaten a meal with one in my arms. Or how many times I've had to bounce both with both feet while holding pacifiers in each of their mouths until they fall asleep. Or how hard it is to carry TWO babies in their car seats out to the car in freezing weather while loading the 50# double stroller by myself. It is not easy. You have to make do and find whatever works. I'm not complaining, but I'm so tired of hearing my singleton-mom friends tell me how to do things that I'm ready to snap.

The other thing is bedtime. They and I...LOVE our bedtime routine. Usually around 5:30pm we start bathtime, dress in our jammies & Sleepsacks and sing a few songs and read a few books. Then our bedtime book and bottles, and we are ASLEEP by 6pm! I vary this a little bit depending on how tired they both are. But usually this is our routine and we love it.

I'm deliriously happy and so very grateful to have these two little ones in my life. I'm so blessed that they are healthy and alive. Even when he's up all.night.long. We are still so very happy that they are alive and healthy. It is awesome having TWO and I can't imagine having one. They look for each other when they're separated (if one takes an extra long nap or runs to the store with my husband.) They hold hands when playing on the play mat and even 'communicate' with grunts and squeals - too cute.

That's my update - I hope everyone is doing well and I'll post again in a few days. I have another post in my head that I need to get out into cyberland.